I recently redid the items page to correspond closer to a new script that I'm working on, since the old one is broken badly (because of recolors). However, there's no guarantees on releasing it, as I'm fairly random on when I work on it. Anyways, I thought that I'd try to get some input on it, as it's a fairly big change.

You may want to have the headers not only at the top of each table, but periodically in the table as well so it's easier to figure out the stats of the weapons. We'll need to add a necklace category and may want to break handed weapons down into one-handed, two-handed weapons, thrown, etc, (eventually). Also, gloves and shoes should be arms and feet. It looks good, though.

Yeah, I originally did it arms and feet, but arm armor and foot armor didn't sound as good.

Anyways, if the pages are split, then the way that I'd do it would be to link to create a page for health, status items, one-handed, two-handed, ammo, head armor, chest armor, arm armor, leg armor, foot armor, shields, rings, and other. Then each of those pages would subdivide on the categories of the item (like sword or dagger for one-handed items) and contain a link to another page for the unfinished items in that category.

However, I'm mainly curious how many people would like that approach, as it would require more clicks through to see everything. Eventually, it's the way to go, but I'm not entirely sure if it's the best way yet, which is why I thought I'd start a thread on it first.

I took the liberty to add some more headers to the lists (every 8 items as long as there are at least four at the end of each list). We might want to look into adding the ability to sort each listing as well (the wiki software would have to be updated to 1.9 to do this).

Sorting sounds nice, as it would be nice to get away from scripts as much as possible, since you can't be certain when you need to make a change in the future. However, it doesn't eliminate the need for them at the moment.

The problem is that the data used is stored in two locations at the moment, which makes it harder to edit (and has left a few inconsistencies). Eventually, I think it would be great if itemdb could be folded into items.xml. If that happens, then we could eventually make it so that it doesn't have to break any scripts when changes are made (provided that they are made well).

Right now, I'm working on simplifying the script so that it is much easier to maintain because of reduced complexity and doesn't reinvent when it's not necessary. If items.xml becomes the de-facto file for items in The Mana World in the future, then it would become a lot easier to create new wiki pages in the future.

Tametomo wrote:The problem is that the data used is stored in two locations at the moment, which makes it harder to edit (and has left a few inconsistencies). Eventually, I think it would be great if itemdb could be folded into items.xml. If that happens, then we could eventually make it so that it doesn't have to break any scripts when changes are made (provided that they are made well).

Right now, I'm working on simplifying the script so that it is much easier to maintain because of reduced complexity and doesn't reinvent when it's not necessary. If items.xml becomes the de-facto file for items in The Mana World in the future, then it would become a lot easier to create new wiki pages in the future.

The itemdb file is for the current eAthena server. TMWServ (the custom server thats still being worked on and will be used in the long run) will use the same file as the client (items.xml).

All pages now have the rarity listed for an item. This might open up a good sized can of worms, as there's plenty of players who would like to claim that certain items are rarer than they actually are. This should at least help to make rarity a little more transparent.

Also, if there's some errors in the rarity ranking, then feel free to correct them, but post here on why it was incorrect, using the rarity rules I came up with. Also, if there's any corrections that need to be made to the rules, post them here so that they can be discussed.

now that the page is split up, can we have a `recent changes' page, please? The main reason for me to check this page is to see whether new items have been added or item properties have changed, and with multiple pages it now takes noticeably longer to dig through everything.

Also, some of the rarities are incorrect. There are numerous rock knives, desert bows etc. in the game now, and I have personally held a sand cutter and a sabre in my hands. (Similarly, you will find many people wearing caps these days.) Could we instead have that data generated by scripts? It would e.g. be interesting to know how many gold plate mails there are in the game right now (my guess would be about five or six).

As for the items that you listed, what would you suggest for their rarity? As far as I know the cap hasn't ever been officially released or used, but the dev cap has been used a lot.

EDIT: Here's a link to the new version: http://wiki.themanaworld.org/index.php? ... oldid=9534. Thanks, Fate, that was a really good idea for handling the page, as it was starting to get out of control. As for actual item counts, it would likely need to be written by one of the administrators on the server, much like the player statistics are now. If such a script was written, I don't think that it could be dynamically loaded into the wiki, but I'd certainly place a link to it.

Oh, and I probably should add that most of these are some good guesses on how many exist. I haven't been around since the beginning, so I can't account for some of the items. My main reason behind mentioning it here first is that I'm more concerned about something being declared rarer than it actually is. If it's not as rare as I put it as, feel free to fix it.

Last edited by Tametomo on 04 Jun 2008, 21:04, edited 2 times in total.

By the way, I was referring to the regular (non-Dev) cap. I'm not sure how common it is, but I have seen several people in the town square wearing it.

My recommendation would be to run a script over the player db to extract the item counts from all non-GM accounts and sum them up. For items of which there are 5 or less, give the count, then for more get the item that has the most frequency, average over that, and assign frequency names by that.

To me, personally the split into several sub-pages could have waited till there were more items available in the game. If the pages are too big they may load slowly and be hard to orientate, but if there are too many small sub-pages the users may get frustrated when browsing.

As it is now, IÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢d suggest the following sub-pages:
ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã‚Â¢ WeaponsÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â‚¬Âthat is 1/2-handed, both close and range, and projectiles (about 50 items)
ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã‚Â¢ Head armor (about 35 items)
ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã‚Â¢ Other armorÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â‚¬Âthat is chest, legs, hands, feet (about 20 items)
ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã‚Â¢ Usable itemsÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â‚¬Âthat is both of health and status (about 25 items)
ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã‚Â¢ Other items (about 40 items)

Not sure about the shields and rings (about 5 items each) though. And as certain categories get added to they can be turned into their own subpages if needed.

And IÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢d also suggest to put the explanations on rarity levels below the tables (since the info IÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢m looking for is the table data itself, especially since the explanations will be learned after a while). And as it is the same on every sub-page IÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢d further suggest to turn it into a template so that it just needs to be changed in one place.

I would suggest to simplify the rareness categories because the rareness of items is often subjective and disputable. Solving those disputes by checking the server database is quite out of discussion.

I propose the following categories:
-Buyable / can be gained through permanent quests
-Frequently Dropped (> 1%)
-Rarely dropped (<= 1%)
-No longer obtainable (stuff which was once dropped by monsters or could be obtained through a temporary event quest)
-Unobtainable (including things which are in the game because they were spawned by admins)

I would also suggest to exclude things which are not in the servers item database (like the rings, for example, which were made for debugging attribute enhancing items on TMWServ). Before an item is in the server database there is no guarantee that it will ever be ingame.

former Manasource Programmer

former TMW Pixel artist

NOT a game master

Please do not send me any inquiries regarding player accounts on TMW.

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